


Grieving

by AuraTheScribe



Series: Bringing Up Steven [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Momswap AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7484694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuraTheScribe/pseuds/AuraTheScribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Rose Quartz gives up her form so Steven can be born, the Gems and Greg find their own ways to express their grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Peridot: Work

Peridot stood alone in her room, using her fingers to navigate through screens of information with a neutral expression on her face. She never ceased to be amazed by how humanity’s records of their own world seemed to continually contradict themselves. With a sigh, she pulled up as many sources of information as she could on her systems and began to compare and contrast everything she could find in order to figure out a solution.

This sort of thing was normal for Peridot. When she wasn’t on a mission or taking the time to socialize with the other gems for one reason or another, she spent most of her time in her room undertaking tasks of a mental nature. She felt the need for constant advancement, whether it be through gaining new knowledge or upgrading her tech. As long as there was something that could be discovered or improved, then she would find the time to work on it.

However, for all she loved to use her tech knowledge, she loved revealing her findings just as much, if not moreso. Showing off the fruits of her research always gave her such a rush. She imagined that it was similar to how Jasper felt when she was fighting, or how Greg felt when he played that guitar of his. Although she would never admit it out loud, showing off was one of the major reasons as to why she devoted so much time to her projects. She knew that a gem probably shouldn’t indulge themselves in such self-centered behavior, but she just couldn’t help herself. It made her feel like she was really helping out the team whenever she revealed some new discovery of hers.

Most of the time, she brought her reports to Rose. Jasper and Lapis were not particularly scientifically minded, and Greg more than likely would not understand whatever it was that she told him. Besides, Peridot had only known him for a very short time, so she did not feel comfortable with the concept of sharing vital information with him, no matter how much Rose liked him. Rose was always a good listening ear, giving her full attention and asking relevant questions whenever Peridot presented the results of one of her projects. Not to mention how she was always full of praise afterwards. She really made Peridot feel like the most important Gem in the universe.

But that was over now. Rose was gone. She had given up her form to create offspring. Despite all of Peridot’s collected knowledge from over the years, that had caught her by complete surprise. She had never known that such a thing was possible. But even if this was a new discovery, Peridot couldn’t feel happy about it. How could she feel happy knowing that Rose was going to be leaving them?

After Rose left, Peridot returned to her room to continue her projects. She collected data, upgraded her limb enhancers, and maintained her tech. Everything was running perfectly, and she was learning more by the day. Only now she had no one to tell about her findings. Rose was gone, Greg was clueless, and Jasper and Lapis did not seem to want to talk aside from when time came for them to go on a mission. And even then, the Gems had to focus on dealing with present dangers rather than making small talk. So Peridot kept her discoveries to herself.

Peridot had been leaving her room less often as of late as well. After all, if she had no one to report her progress to, then why bother to stop working? So she continued her work tirelessly. She would remain in her room for days at a time, researching, tinkering, and updating her equipment. But she had ulterior motives for immersing herself so deeply in her work. By focusing so hard on her various self-assigned tasks, she was left with less spare time to think about Rose. If she didn’t think about Rose, then she wouldn’t get emotional. She imagined that Rose’s memory would be insulted if she began to cry, seeing how serene she had been when it all ended.

Peridot tried to push these feelings to the back of her mind as she continued her work. She sifted through a series of science related debates, most of which contradicted each other and often led to the proponents of each theory arguing with each other. She could almost laugh at how immature these humans could act when trying to speak about such a sophisticated field of study.

She was actually impressed by how the arguments wound up overshadowing the debate itself. She began to assume that these “comment sections” were made for the sole purpose of having the loudest, most belligerent representatives from each faction face off in a war of words. However, this battle had no winner. Even though Peridot was able to surmise which side was in the right based off of who had the more convincing evidence to back them up, they were shouted down anyway, sometimes with a topic that had already been previously discussed. After seeing this cycle happen a few times, Peridot couldn’t decide whether it was amusing or depressing.

After she finished distracting herself with the cements, Peridot closed the corresponding screen with a small chuckle. She imagined that the argument was still ongoing. She was pretty sure that not even Rose could have defused that never-ending conflict.

Peridot paused. She had just done what she had been trying oh-so-hard not to do: She thought about Rose. Almost immediately, old memories started flooding back. All the times she would talk to her. All the times Rose gave her the support that she needed. Rose was flooding her mind, and with that came the feelings that she had been keeping bottled up for weeks.

She couldn’t concentrate on her work. Not like this. She took her eyes off of her screens and hung her head, bringing a finger to her face in a futile attempt to wipe away a newly formed stream of tears.

She didn’t want to work. She just wanted Rose back.


	2. Lapis: Breathe

Dealing with stressful subjects was usually easy for Lapis Lazuli. All she had to do was crack a few jokes, maybe throwing in a bad pun or two. It wasn’t that she didn’t take things seriously, she just preferred to take the edge off rather than sit around being all uptight and gloomy whenever things didn’t look totally perfect. Besides, even if the other Gems told her to her face that her jokes were bad, at least their moods seemed to be slightly better after the fact. Well, most of the time, anyway.

But this time, things were different. She couldn’t think of anything funny to say. There was no way she could lighten the mood with a pun and a smirk. There was just no way that she could make losing Rose funny. Not even the greatest comedian in the world could do that. It was just too personal, too painful to even dwell on, much less try to make a witty comment about. Not to mention, she was pretty sure that there was a slight chance that Jasper or Peridot would poof her if they thought she was mocking Rose’s memory.

So with her primary coping method out of the question, she had to search for other means to deal with her emotions. Talking it out was out of the question, since Jasper and Peridot had been really distant lately, and she really didn’t feel like talking to Greg. Plus, Greg had to take care of Steven, so that probably didn’t leave him with much time to spare in the first place.

Rose had always been there when she needed to talk. If there was something that was bothering her, and just making fun of it wasn’t going to help, Lapis could always come to her. Rose seemed to have time for everyone, no matter what it was they needed. She had talked Lapis through so many things in the past, things that Lapis either didn’t understand or didn’t know how to deal with. Rose had been her guide through the unknown, and she had always followed dutifully. But she didn’t have Rose to help her this time. She had to deal with this on her own.

With her first two options shot, Lapis moved on to her next idea: meditation. Lapis had tried meditation in the past when she was stressed, and it worked… sometimes. When she tried it, it tended to range from very helpful to utterly ineffective. However, she didn’t have any other ideas at the moment, so she stuck to the meditation plan.

She needed to find a place that was very calm, somewhere she wouldn’t be bothered. She considered her room, but she didn’t want to be in the temple right that second. She thought that it would remind her too much of Rose, which is exactly the opposite of what she was trying to do. Going into town was out of the question as well. Even if Beach City wasn’t exactly a bustling cityscape, she had a feeling that the sounds of tourists moving up and down the streets would do a lot to break her conversation. The beach itself had the same problem, too many tourists hanging around. However, the idea of listening to the gentle rhythm of the waves did appeal to her.

_Wait… waves?_

Lapis snapped her fingers as she came up with a plan. She went to the shoreline and stepped out onto the water. She made a brief, subtle motion with her hands, and the water began to carry her out into the open ocean. She imagined that any onlookers would be surprised to see her gliding across the surface of the water this way, but she didn’t really care. Dealing with her own mental anguish came first.

Once she was a fair distance away from the shore, she sat cross-legged on the water and closed her eyes. She tried to use her meditation tactics, emptying her mind of the things that bothered her while focusing on calming things. She concentrated as hard as she could, trying to force her mind to do what she wanted it to do. She started to feel something shift, and thought that it might be working…

… Only for her to sink into the ocean. Trying to meditate while actively keeping herself on the surface of the water turned out to be a poor idea, and now she was soaking wet on top of her other problems. With an irritated gesture, she brought herself back to the surface and began moving along once again in search for a more peaceful place to meditate.

Within minutes, she found a large rock formation jutting out of the water. She looked it over and nodded. It looked like it would make a decent place to try again. She summoned a pillar of water to carry her upward, then stepped from it onto of the highest point of the rock she could comfortably sit upon. She could hear the waves moving around her and felt the wind blowing through her hair. She had a good feeling about this. This was going to work.

Lapis sat in her meditation position once again and restarted the process. She tried to empty her mind of the bad things and replace them with the good. She focused on the sounds of nature around her. The sound of the waves crashed through her mind. The noises of the seagulls reverberated, the rush of the wind echoed. All of it came together to create a symphony around her. The orchestra of the ocean.

Lapis breathed deeply. Her expression was completely neutral as she kept her focus. She repeated the sensations she was feeling in her mind. Cool breeze, soothing sounds, warm sunlight. She kept those thoughts in her mind above all else. She took a few more breaths before opening her eyes once again.

It didn’t work.

She tried, but she just couldn’t stop thinking about Rose. Even though the memories were hurting her at the moment, they were just too personal, too precious for her to try to push them out of her mind, even for a few moments. She didn’t want to forget Rose.

Lapis sat on her rock and looked out into the ocean. She could still see Beach City over the horizon, but it was quite a distance away now. And with no warp pad around, it would be another boring, uneventful trek across the water back to shore.

_This was a bad idea in the first place…_


	3. Jasper: Fight

The Redstone Desert was not usually a well-traveled area, and for good reason. The scorching heat and arid climate made for a very unfriendly environment for anything aside from the local flora and fauna. When one remembers the many venomous animals known to inhabit the area, the end result is a place that very few people would want to venture to, at least on purpose.

In Jasper’s opinion, that made it the perfect place to blow off some steam.

The imposing Quartz soldier had been visiting Redstone with increasing frequency in recent days. Every visit was the same. She would seek out a very large rock, then test her fists against it until she didn’t feel like punching anymore. She had been doing this with such regularity that it was almost routine for her at this point. Nearly every rock formation of significant size near the warp pad had notable marks left by Jasper’s punches.

Redstone honestly hadn’t been Jasper’s first choice when it came to this. Her original plan had been sneaking into the Beach City gym after hours to use the punching bags there, but that notion was abandoned after she had ruined three in a row with one punch each. Trees had been ruled out as well after she discovered that they could not take many of her attacks before snapping, and if that hadn’t snapped her out of that idea, then the lecture she got from Peridot about the status of the Earth’s environment certainly did.

Redstone had been her third choice, and it was the only one that really worked out for her. The massive stone structures had the resilience to take her attacks without breaking, and the vacant nature of the desert meant that she didn’t have to worry about anyone showing up while she worked out her frustrations. There was a chance that Peridot or Lapis could show up via warp pad, but since they had been off mourning in their own ways as of late, she discounted that possibility.

Jasper examined a large rock formation about a hundred yards from the warp pad. It was about two feet taller than she was, around three times as wide, and had surprisingly smooth surfaces on the side. As far as she could tell, it was a perfect target. She ran her hand along the side of the rock to get a feel for it. It really was as smooth as it looked. Rather surprising for a boulder in the middle of a craggy desert. Jasper retracted her hand and got into a fighting stance. She closed her eyes and book a breath before throwing her first punch.

Jasper’s fist hit the stone hard, but inflicted little visible damage aside from a small dent at the point of impact. She paused momentarily before throwing a second punch, similar to the first. She continued with this process with almost machine-like precision. Left, right, left, right. The repeated precision blows caused the dents from the first two punches to steadily grow with each new hit. The process was slow, but noticeable.

As she continued punching, Jasper dwelled on everything that had been bothering her recently. _Punch._ Peridot never came out of her room anymore unless there was a mission. _Punch._ Lapis pretty much stopped talking to anyone, not even to make a dumb joke. _Punch._ And Rose… 

**PUNCH**

She planted her fist directly between the two divots she had created on the rock. She closed her eyes and growled as she started thinking about Rose again. She wasn’t angry at Rose, or at least she was trying very hard not to be. If it wasn’t for Rose, then she probably would have been shattered back on Homeworld. She owed her life to the motherly gem. Even after that, Rose was always the common element that held the team together. She could resolve any dispute and have everyone working together again in no time. And that’s not even getting into her combat ability. Jasper didn’t think she had ever seen such a graceful, yet powerful warrior on the battlefield.

Rose had even done a lot to help Jasper curb her own anger issues, another thing that the quartz was incredibly thankful for. She had been able to keep herself in check and avoid making stupid decisions, all thanks to Rose. Rose had been a guiding light, someone who could be trusted to lead the Gems under any conditions. There was no one in existence that Jasper would rather fight under.

But then Greg came along. Stupid, stupid Greg. At first Jasper didn’t have any issues with him. Heck, she would have even gone as far as to say he was mildly amusing. He spent a lot of time with Rose, but Rose would never neglect her duties as a Crystal Gem. He never came off as anything that could prove to be a problem. She gritted her teeth as the memories flooded her head once again. She started throwing punches with more speed and intensity.

If Greg had never met Rose, then Rose never would have gotten the idea to have a baby. Rose never would have given up her form. Rose never would have left the Gems without their leader. All of this happened because of her interaction with one human. All of it was Greg’s fault. Greg was the reason Rose was taken away from them. Whenever she saw him, that was all she could think about. And it infuriated her.

Not only did she hate Greg for that, but because when she felt herself become enraged like that, she remembered Rose telling her how to control her anger, trying to help her improve herself. But Rose’s voice in her head only made her angry at herself for slipping back into old habits. That was why she was at Redstone. She needed to vent her rage someplace safe so that she would not do something that she would regret. And the whole time, she could not get the feeling out of her head that Rose would be disappointed in her.

Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn’t everything have stayed the way it was? Why did Rose have to leave? Didn’t she know how much she meant to the gems? Didn’t she know how much she had meant to her?

With a roar of anguish and frustration, Jasper summoned her helmet and smashed her head into the rock with all of the force she could muster. The impact was many times stronger than her already-formidable punches, and left a massive crater in the rock, larger than Jasper herself.

As Jasper looked at the damage she had caused, she grimaced before letting out another cry of anger. She kicked a chunk of rock that has broken off from the boulder before sitting in a hunched position against the boulder that she had just so viciously attacked. She had lost control of her temper again, and she was fully aware of it.

Rose definitely would not have been proud of her.


End file.
